Soulmate
by CloudedCreation
Summary: It was pure chance, that they met the way they did.


It was by pure chance, really, that they met the way did that first time.

Bill was barely eighteen, fresh out of school and merely weeks away from starting his apprenticeship with a curse-breaker working for Gringotts. He wasn't even sure what he was doing in muggle London to begin with, it just turned out that way. But it didn't matter how he had gotten there, in the end, all that actually held any importance was that he was _there_, at a park in Surrey, Little Whinging, and was practically bored to death, sitting in the scratched up swing just waiting for something to _happen_.

_Harry_, happened. The tiny, so _so_ tiny, boy who came running right into him, like he was chased by death itself. For all Bill knew, he might as well have been given how starved and broken he looked. He was just able to catch him before the poor child would have planted his face firmly into the sandy ground, and Bill swore he could feel every single bone there was in that small body.

"Hey there, slow down a little buddy." He tried to sound cheerful, _normal_, like he met malnourished boys every day, but it was a fool's mission.

The boy didn't look up, his eyes planted on the ground as he hurriedly withdrew from the forced embrace, as if he feared it. As if he feared Bill.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to. I'm sorry." He could hear him murmur under his breath, forced words he probably had repeated far too many times just to stay safe, or at the very least, safer. Bill didn't know just how he knew that, he had no prior experience with abuse or anything like it, but he felt like he _knew_ this boy intimately. Like they were meant to meet at this spot, at this time and in this way from the very beginning. Like this predetermined meeting was the ending-station of the sequence of coincidents which originally drew him here.

_Like they were destined for each other._

Just as that particular thought entered his mind he felt his magic reach out and envelop the small creature in front of him. It wasn't tentative in the least, he just felt his very essence rush forward in a wave and cover boy from top to bottom, who, in turn, drew it into himself before reaching out with his own magic, connecting them for the rest of their lives.

It was the most glorious feeling he had ever experienced, and Bill forgot where he was, he forgot how to move, how to breathe, how to _feel_ anything except the emotions that connected him with his intended by magic.

He remembered the brief mention in the old tome regarding soulmates, beings destined for each other. Men, women and creatures whose very core had a mirror image. Not good or bad, light or dark, the cores of magic didn't work that way, but same yet different.

The odds for such a meeting were staggeringly small, not only did the pair have to meet during their respective lifetimes and actually touch each other, but even when a man was born relatively close in years to his fated, there still are so many people and places in the world that the chance of meeting _each other_ is ridiculous. Barely more than a handful had met during the last thousand years.

Returning back to lucidity, his light blue eyes focused once again on the small figure in front of him, still cowering and hugging himself like a wounded animal, but Bill could feel the utter _amazement_ the child was experiencing regarding their joining. He could feel the joy, slight fear, strangeness and complete fullness the likes none of them had ever felt before, because they were feeling it at the same times. They had connected on an emotional level, after all, emotions were things of the soul and heart, and there they were one as well, never to be separated.

Slowly reaching out with both of his hands, cupping the boy's cheeks, _small flinch but no shying away_, Bill gently tilted his petite face upwards. He was pale, almost sickly so, but the lingering magic made his skin glow almost ethereally. A small nose, tilted slightly upwards, a little bit too big for his face pair of pink lips, delicate dark eyebrows, high cheekbones and the most extraordinary green eyes Bill had ever witnessed. The child would grow up to be beautiful, that was for sure, and the oldest of the Weasley children who was so used to not having much other than love in abundance, couldn't help but feeling dizzy with joy and amazement about the fact the he was gifted with both _his _soulmate and a pretty one.

He almost missed the scar in the midst of everything else he was experiencing. Almost.

He sucked in a harsh breath at the sight of the lightning mark etched onto his newly found loved ones face. It was dark, he could feel it in his core as his was the boy's was his, _Harry_, he reminded himself. They would have to get rid of it as soon as possible, he decided, but that could wait until later, there was the matter of introducing himself properly to his most important person first.

He smiled brightly as he hunched down in front of the still dazed boy, hands still resting at the boys slightly pinked cheeks. "Hello, Harry, my name is William Weasley. It's very nice to have met you."


End file.
